


The Lament of Odin Allfather

by Valentine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor: Ragnarok - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Odin saves Asgard, Odin's internal monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valentine/pseuds/Valentine
Summary: It was never Odin's goal to be a good father.





	The Lament of Odin Allfather

He’s a terrible father. He’s a good liar, but Odin makes a point of not lying to himself. He’s not a good person. He’s an effective king. Those things are important, but all secondary to what he really is. He’s a god. The God of wisdom was his first godhood. There have been other gods of wisdom, but he has outlived them all. In that time he has collected other divinities, god of knowledge, god of battle, god of death, and god of dozens of other things large and small. Some of those titles he will pass on at his death. Some will be collected by those found worthy. And one he offered to his first but not best loved child, Hela. She is his first and perhaps greatest failure as a father. 

Frigga, his wife, is the goddess of foreknowledge, but it is he who can follow the thread back to what causes that future. Odin hears her visions of a thousand, million futures that all end in Ragnarok and sees a way that may save them. To find that future he must offer Hela the power of death, and she must choose to accept it. To that end he trains her himself. 

He makes her the leader of his armies. He conquers other realms and satisfies himself with the knowledge that the citizens that survive will live longer more prosperous lives under his rule. Odin hardens his heart and offers her the power that will ruin her. He reminds himself that in most futures where he doesn’t offer her power of death she takes it by force. He makes himself the person she loves most and then hates even more.

And when she accepts instead of weeping he thinks of those futures in which she refused that power and chose her own path. In one she is the goddess of the underworld and beloved sister of Thor. Thor dies long before his majority and Odin never takes Loki into his home. Asgard ends in ice. In another she is the goddess of healing. Thor survives to be not just a great king but a good man. Asgard ends in fire. In both he is happy and loved by his children until the end. 

In this world he locks up a daughter and steals a son during a war he started to give himself the opportunity. He hardens his heart and teaches his sons that only Asgardians are people others are a mere facsimile, and when Thor takes his teaching to heart and kills as amusement he casts him out. It is easier than it was the first time. Thor must learn to consider non Asgardians as worthy of his protection, but he must learn it away from Asgard and more importantly away from Loki. His sons must fight, and they do.

He has held Loki at arm’s length since he brought the boy home. He was trying to protect a heart that had already been fractured by the loss of one child. His wife is the loving counterweight to his indifference, but it won’t be enough to keep Loki from rebelling. Thor was the only child he could safely love. He would save Asgard if they could be saved. Loki was necessary to a point, but it was Thor that must be king. Thor who must learn to be not only god but savior. It’s easy to love Thor. Thor takes after Frigga. In Hela and Loki Odin sees what he most hates about himself. 

Loki nearly manages the genocide of an entire race killing more sentient beings in a day than Odin managed over a thousand years. Odin spared no grief for those deaths and only a little over the suffering of Loki, his son, and an Asgardian in spirit if not in body. He must suffer to give Asgard a chance. Asgardians might not be the only people, but he prized one Asgardian life over a universe of non Asgardians. He continued down the only path he could see that might lead to the survival of his people.

Loki falls and eventually his sons meet again. Again they fight only this time the battlefield is bigger. Again Thor prevails because he has made allies on Midgard. Allies he considers people. Odin can not meet the eyes of a returned and imprisoned Loki. He leaves the task to Frigga. Death comes to Asgard and Frigga meets it without fear. Loki slithers out of his imprisonment and finds him.

He’s been waiting for the momentary reprieve of forgetfulness since he started on this path. And the few months on Midgard before Loki’s spell unravels are the most peaceful of his life. When Thor and Loki once again stand next to each other as brothers he is more than ready to die. He has done all he can and gladly passes the responsibility of Asgard to Thor.


End file.
